


The Threads That Bind Us

by writinginthedust



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 02:41:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14967344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writinginthedust/pseuds/writinginthedust
Summary: Based off this post (https://rhysand-vs-rowan.tumblr.com/post/165863156093/i-know-it-was-probably-because-they-would-one-day) - Cassian is being introduced to Nesta's existence one painful moment at a time.Just a bit of fun!





	The Threads That Bind Us

What the Inner Circle of the Night Court couldn’t possibly have known was that, across the Wall in some tiny human village, an innocuous mortal woman was lying in her birthing bed and had been since before dawn broke that morning.

Mor, perceptive as she was, had noticed it first. Beads of sweat had formed on Cassian’s brow and she saw how he grimaced as the light of the sun hit his eyes as he walked into the kitchen. “Are you alright?” she’d asked but he’d merely grunted in reply.

She shrugged her shoulders, inwardly cursing the stubborn nature of these Illyrian idiots and continued to eat but out of the corner of her eye she kept watch as Cassian rubbed his temples.

***

It was midday when Cassian returned from the training grounds and at one look at his face no one dared ask him why he was back so early. He looked an interesting combination of angry and unwell, his usually tanned face paling as more beads of sweat formed and ran down the sides of his face.

“I do not,” he grumbled out, “want to see or speak to anyone for a couple of hours.”

Mor and Azriel watched as he stormed off towards his room and they shared a silent but concerned look. “Do Illyrian’s get sick?” Mor asked.

“No,” was Azriel’s reply.

***

They made Cassian come to dinner but regretted it immediately. As soon as he sat down he proceeded to hit his head repeatedly against the table. “Maybe if I keep doing this,” he said, “my head will just fall off and the pain will stop.”

“Did you sleep?” Mor asked and rubbed her fingers against the corded muscle at the back of Cassian’s neck hoping to soothe him. She noticed how Azriel’s eyes flickered briefly towards them and then away.              

“Yes,” came a muffled reply from a mouth pressed against the wood. “But it didn’t help.” He sat up, a pained expression on his face. “Is this what death feels like? Is it finally coming for me? Famed Lord of Bloodshed and I die, _of a migraine._ ”

Amren rolled her eyes and took a long sip from her glass. “Doubtful,” she said. “It’s probably just a spell, a powerful one perhaps, but it will pass I’m sure.”

Cassian nodded in agreement. “Well whoever cast it hates me. I mean _hates me,_ because I am ready to chop off my own head.” He looked around at the concerned - and in the case of Amren, mildly amused - faces of his friends. “Search the prisons,” he told them. “Do what you need to do. Avenge me.” With that, he flopped back down.

 ***

 What the Inner Circle didn’t know was that across the Wall that innocuous mortal woman, having spent the entirety of her day and night in her birthing bed drenched in her own sweat, finally gave birth to what would become the first of her three daughters.

As the baby drew her first breath and gave her first shrill cry, exercising both powerful lungs and a forceful will, Cassian; Lord of Bloodshed, Prince of Bastards, Infamous General Commander of the Night Court Armies and reputed reincarnation of the warrior-god Enalius himself, curled up into a ball and rocked back and forth.

He turned to a panicked looking Azriel, “Hold me,” he begged. “Hold me.”

***

Cassian would never forget what was, very clearly, an attempt on his life by some unknown, deeply dangerous assailant. The months that had followed the magical assassination attempt had been peppered by random bursts of pain and discomfort which the Inner Circle put down to lingering magical influences. What they couldn’t have known was that Nesta Archeron was experiencing several bouts of colic.

***

In the end it had been forgotten. Time passes quickly when your lifespan is forever and Cassian and the rest quickly forgot the mystical attempt on Cassian’s life from an unknown assailant. There were more pressing concerns and there were more attempts, although usually those involved more aggressive and overt means, and their attentions were drawn in multiple directions.

Until that one night - of no significance - when it happened again. Cassian slept soundly, exhausted from several hours with a woman he’d been _acquainted_ with earlier, while across the Wall in the human lands a clock struck the hour.

Nesta Archeron, the first-born daughter of a long dead innocuous mortal woman, was awake and staring into the darkness. Her younger sisters were pressed against her in their shared bed, their bodies making her uncomfortably warm. She listened to the chime that signified something momentous that would go unacknowledged the following morning.

“Happy eighteenth birthday,” she said to herself and rolled over to try and sleep.

At the moment of the final chime, underneath the stars and the inky blue sky of the Night Court, Cassian opened his eyes and moaned before he clutched his stomach and rolled off the bed. 

***

“He didn’t come down for breakfast so I came up to see him and I found him like this,” Cassian could hear Mor whisper. “I didn’t know what to do. He asked me to smother him with a pillow.”

“You weren’t tempted to do it?”

“Amren!”

Cassian groaned from his place on the bed. “Please,” he begged. “Shut up.”

A cool hand swept over his face, smoothing back his hair and Mor’s face came into view, her blonde hair dangling over him like a curtain. She smiled at him but even Cassian could tell it was weak. “Is it your head?”

“No,” he clutched his stomach. “But this time, I am definitely dying.”

Amren’s face hovered over him, joining Mor’s. She rolled her eyes and he wondered why she kept doing that when he was so close to the end of his immortal existence. “You’re going to be fine.”

Her hands smoothed down his chest and stomach but he didn’t have it in him to make any suggestive remarks. “It’s just indigestion, probably brought on because you eat _far_ too much.” Cassian managed to make a gesture but Amren ignored him. “I’ll get something that will soothe it. You’ll be fine.” 

***

Cassian requested that Mor take notes as he dictated. “I want to be buried with all seven siphons,” he winced and clutched his stomach. “And I want to be buried by the mountains. In full leathers.”        

He huffed and curled up. “Take whatever you want of mine, save something for Rhys but Amren picks last.”

Mor paused her scribing, “Cass....”

“No. There’s no time for sentimental goodbyes. Whoever is doing this to me is strong, there’s no way we can defeat them.”

“Cass...”

“They...,” he breathed out through clenched teeth, “are a worthy opponent.”

“Cass, Az is at the prison. He’s going to find out who is behind this and we’ll make sure this is stopped. You’re going to live,” and she said it with such determination he almost believed her. “No one is going to get the better of Cassian, General of the Night Court Armies. No one.” 

***

Az hadn’t managed to find out anything. He omitted telling Cassian that many prisoners seemed pleased by this magical curse cast upon the Illyrian who had imprisoned them. He also didn’t mention that many prisoners remarked that if they gained their freedom they would serve the source of the Commander’s misery for the rest of their immortal lives.

Azriel just had to tell Cassian to hold on, that this would pass like it did all those years ago.

“It won’t Az,” he’d been told in reply. “I can sense this is something final, something permanent. There’s no salvation for me now.” Az responded by clutching Cassian’s hand, at Cassian’s request, but he stared into the distance something stirring in his memory.

He’d been leaving the prison when he’d heard the laugh coming from the cell of the Bone Carver. The shadows melted into the crevices and returned with a whisper. The Bone Carver had made a claim, ‘ _she isn’t awake but is waking. The Prince of Bastards will have to wait some more years until his salvation arrives_.’

“I’ll be back soon,” Az said to Cassian and prised his hand away. Cassian whimpered in response.

***

“He’s fine!” Amren told Azriel. “I don’t think it’s just cause to send me in because he’s eaten too much and is now crying about it!”

“It’s the same as last time.”

Amren glanced down at her nails and curled her fingers. “Well, if it is magical it only lasted for a day last time, didn’t it? It will, most likely, only last for a day now too.”

Azriel was inclined to agree but had stated that they needed to know what it was, that they needed to be prepared for the future. If it was magical then maybe they could cast a counter-spell to mitigate its effects or at least try and prevent it from happening again. Was it fair, he had pleaded, that Cassian receive this pain?

It was her begrudging acceptance that meant she was now standing over Cassian’s prone form. His eyes were clenched shut and Mor was fussing about him like he was a small child. Amren refrained from jabbing him in his stomach just to see how both would respond.

She closed her eyes and focused. The magic within her looked past his skin and muscle and bone. It looked past the rush of hot blood and the movement of his stomach. It was exactly as she said. Indigestion. Nothing more. But as she looked, she saw _something_ and it made her curious.

A thread had wound its way around his heart and was glowing there quietly. It was small and thin with only a spider-web thickness and just as light, but it was there nonetheless. _Interesting,_ she thought and followed it.

Although her corporeal form was standing in the House of Wind, she was rushing high above it. The thread, shining silver, led her up into the sky and she flew after it as it extended beyond the Night Court and into Day. Then again into Dawn and then again as it flew into the courts of the seasons.

For some reason Amren expected it to stop in Autumn but it stretched on and on and it was only when it began to stretch past the Wall that she became uncomfortable. It was heading into the Mortal Realm and tugged her towards a small cottage.

Inside she danced over the heads of three girls, all with golden brown hair.  No, it was two girls and one woman. One of the girls sparked Amren’s interest but the thread wasn’t going there. Instead it pulled her down into the chest of the eldest human female and there Amren saw the end of it wrapped around her mortal heart.

It was cruel, she decided. That the cauldron gift this to Cassian when he could never receive it.

Amren pulled herself back into her body and looked at the sweaty Illyrian and the fussing blonde.

“What did you find?” Mor asked. “Can we stop this?”

“No,” she replied and without missing a beat she bent down to plant a soft kiss onto Cassian’s cheek.

“Oh cauldron,” he whispered. “It’s worse than we thought. Mor, get the pillow.” 

***

His mouth reluctantly pulled away from hers and the pained little whine she gave made him smile. He wasn’t planning on going far. Cassian’s lips skimmed past her jaw and down to her throat where he pressed languid, open mouthed kisses, his tongue reaching out to flicker against her pulse point.            

Unlike that day – so long ago now – where she had pushed him away, she now tilted her neck backwards and grabbed his shirt with both hands, her fingers almost clawing in desperation. Nesta’s breasts were pressed tight against his chest and the pounding of her heart matched his.

Cassian’s body pressed her against the wall, his pelvis holding her firmly against it. Nesta’s breathing deepened as he flexed into her with one long hard push. And another and another. Her little whine got louder and her fingers dug in harder. She took advantage of how her legs wrapped around his waist to push back. A groan, deep and low and _male_ escaped his throat.

_Nesta, Nesta, Nesta,_ he thought. His mind swam with her all the time. He wanted to bathe himself in her scent, live within her body. This was exactly where he needed to be and he was with the exact person he needed to be with.

There was a tug. At first, Cassian thought it was Nesta pulling on his clothes but it happened again. Not from the outside but from within. An unyielding invisible thread drawing him towards the woman in his arms. They undulated their hips together and suddenly...

“Ow!” Nesta exclaimed. “What was that?” She looked down at their chests and brought her hand to her sternum to rub it.

Cassian grinned, the bond had snapped. He moved his own hand and placed it on top of hers and met her confused face. Nesta’s eyes widened as she looked at him. “Cassian,” she said. “I don’t want to cause alarm but your nose.... it’s started to bleed. Really quite badly.”

He kept on grinning.

 


End file.
